Nuns -- United States

Abstract Kathleen O'Shea is an author, Lesbian activist, Social reform advocate and was a Catholic nun. Her mother, Sarah Alida Conde O'Shea, grew up in a working-class Catholic family in Kansas. Kathleen's papers include documents and memorabilia from O'Shea's childhood, correspondence, photographs, a small amount of material pertaining to lesbian former nuns, writing research, and video tapes. Sarah's papers include diaries, unpublished memoirs, photographs, memorabilia and genealogical...

Abstract Catholic nun; Lesbian activist; AIDS activist; National Gay and Lesbian Task Force director. Correspondence, reports, news coverage, speeches and speech notes, financial records, and photographs. The papers particularly well document the burgeoning AIDS crisis of the 1980s and the political response. The papers also show well how the Gay and Lesbian Movement grew over time and gained wider acceptance as personified by this one woman's rise in relative political power from the State House in...